Relating to the universal and to the formulation of general laws that explain a range of phenomena. Contrast with idiographic.

What is motivation?

Internal states that impel people to goal-oriented action.

What is psychological hedonism?

Approach, or pursuit of pleasure

Avoid, or withdrawal from pain

Who was Kurt Lewin?

- "Father" of social psychology
- psychology in situ
- situations are v powerful forces affecting behavior
- situations are only as powerful as they are perceived to be
- therefore some situations may be perceived differently by two different people -> different behavioral responses

- male strength and power, both physical and economic
- change and female sexual scripts: females now control paternity
- differential sex drive or control of sex drive: women have milder sex drives

Who are Costa and McCrae?

Five-Factor Model
1) Neuroticism: the more neurotic you are, the more anxious you are, and the more somatic complaints you have.
2) Extraversion: the more extraverted you are, the more close friends you have
3) Openness to New Experiences: the more open you are, the higher is your GPA
4) Agreeableness
5) Conscientiousness

What were Baumeister's three empirical predictions concerning erotic plasticity of behavior?

- women will show greater intra-individual variability in sexual behavior
- sociocultural factors will have a greater impact on women's sexuality
- sexual attitudes & behaviors are less consistent for women than for men

How is continuity maintained?

1) Environmental stability: Behaviour may be PRODUCT or CAUSE of stable individual differences.
2) Genetic stability: based on twin studies, up to 80% of personality may be based on genes.
3) Person-Environment transactions: evocative; proactive; reactive

- we tend to believe people are helpful, but experiments show they aren't
- Kitty Genovese, Martell Welch

What is genetic stability?

Based on twin studies, up to 80% of personality may be due to genes.

What are sociocultural factors concerning erotic plasticity?

- females show greater cross-cultural variation in sexual behavior
- acculturated female Hispanic immigrants are more liberal than male counterparts; also more liberal than unacculturated immigrants

What would situation theorists think about the person vs. situation debate?

- personal traits are categories people use to make sense of their worlds, but doesn't predict stability of behavior across situations and time.
- behavior depends on situation
- if people act the same across situations, it's bcause
1) ppl tend to be in similar situations
2) ppl tend to perceive certain situations as equivalent
3) similar behavior is expected to lead to similar consequences

What do trait theorists think about the person vs. situation debate?

- person's traits are stable across situations and time
- pattern of dispositions determine behavior
- can infer someone's disposition by viewing their behavior (e.g. questionnaire)

- behavior is always an interaction btw. person & situation
- some behavior is more person-determined; others more situation-determined
- important to look for patterns of stability and change in behavior across distinct situations

What were Milgram's experiments?

- to explain the behavior of Nazis
- 1950s: shock @ higher levels of voltage for incorrect answer
- 68% went all the way to 450v
- psychologists polled before test predicted only 1% would go al the way
- participants felt in such powerful situation -> compelled to act contrary to their nature

What is Mischel's social cognitive view?

- observations of children at summer camp
- behavior coded in v. specific interpersonal situations
- 5 categories of behavior: verbal aggression, physical aggression...
- results: each child had distinctive situation-behavior profile. could use it to predict behavior.
- the more similar the situations were, the more consistent the behaviors.
- therefore, each child had a BEHAVIORAL SIGNATURE.

- select sample of people who'd be willing to participate
- attrition
- confound age, cohort, period
- questionable comparability of instruments (Q's at age 3 diff from at age 5)
- effects of being in a longitudinal study--makes people more self-conscious about lives.

What is the basic underlying assumption of the motive units of personality?

Human behavior is best understood as a reflection of underlying needs. Therefore, behavior changes as individuals' needs change.

What is the California Q-Set?

Tester sorts cards along distribution from least to most characteristic
100 statements
Look at correlation in ratings across time periods.

What life-course factors moderate continuity and change in personality?

- Biosocial transitions (puberty, marriage). Alter absolute, but not rank-order. If expected, may result in change. If unexpected, may accentuate personality.
- Historical factors

What is ideographic?

In psychology, relating to investigative procedures that consider the unique characteristics of a single person, studying them in depth, as in the case study. Contrast with nomothetic.

What is Impression formation and social perception?

- categorization: we spontaneously categorize the people we meet; pos. traits take time to stick
- confirmatory bias: we tend to look for information that reinforces our initial impression of a person
- attribution theory: how we make inferences about ppl's true nature

What is the "strange situation"?

(Ainsworth)
Infant, 1 yr, place din unfamiliar setting with stranger, both in presence and absence of infant's caregiver. To observe the behavior of infant in relation to mother under
conditions of an unfamiliar setting, in presence and absence of a stranger, and under conditions of separation and reuniting with mother.

Who was Mary Ainsworth?

Found different types of attachment styles, associated with different parenting styles.
"Strange Situation"
Tested infant attachment in Uganda.

What is the secure attachment style? How does it relate to adult attachment styles?

- valued the "uniqueness of the person"
- held complex views of personality
- creator of the "idiographic approach"
- believed that expression of traits depended on situation
- came up with 10 basic units of personality. By extracting logest list of person-related terms from Webster Dictionary, and then grouped into 4 basic categories (gen. personal tendencies, moods & mental states, social evaluations of character, physical qualities)

What is Pearson's correlation coefficient?

r is between -1 and 1. Measures relationship btw two sets of data.

What is the definition of Factor Analysis?

- summarizes interrelations among set of variables (e.g. items in a questionnaire) collapsed to clusters
- used to identify groups, clusters, "factors" of related items
- these clusters assumed to be basic characteristics of personality

- FACTORS DEFINED BY RESEARCHER
- factors depend on what you include in analysis
- factors are often difficult to interpret

Are heritability and inheritability the same thing?

No. We're talking about the difference between population percentages and individuals.

What is the Oedipus Complex?

In Freudian theory, the desire and conflict of the four-year-old male child who wants to possess his mother sexually and to eliminate the father rival. The threat of punishment from the father causes repression of these id impulses. Conflict in little boys between their love for their mothers, their jealousy of their fathers, and their fear that their fathers will punish them for loving their mothers. Girls have a similar sexual desire for the father which is repressed in analogous fashion and is called the Electra complex.

What were Freud's contributions to personality psychology?

- psychic origins of behavior (id, ego, superego)
- unconscious
- instincts or dries (humans have impulses that must be rechannelled to be socially constructive)
- early experience

- executive: helps id get what it wants within constraints of reality
- reality principle

What is attachment theory?

(Bowlby)
- infants have innate desire to form bond with caregiver, for its own survival
- "attachment propensity" is mutual; infant tries to make itself lovable, mother is drawn to infant.
- forms internal working models during infancy that determine adult attachment styles (e.g., insecure, secure)

What is validity? What are its components?

Measure captures what it's supposed to.

- Discriminant: tests what it's supposed to and not other confounding variables.
- Convergent: related to what it's supposed to.

To be valid, a measure must be reliable.

What is reliability? What are its components?

- Inter-rater: two observers record same data
- Test-retest: get same measurement every time you test

What are the limitations of studies of genetic influences on personality, based on twin studies?

- HC only applies to sample studied. most tests are culturally homogenous, in michigan.
- influences of environment is often assumed but not explicitly measured.
- we don't know how genetic predispositions are expressed.
- don't discuss gene-environment interaction (shared vs non-shared environments)
- we don't know what's being inherited. HC is not the same as inheritability.
- additive effect: combination of genes may amplify effect, cancel each other out, or change one another. they don't work in a linear fashion.